Sometimes, you read something that feels both nostalgic and painfully relevant. That’s exactly how I felt reading the reflection article by Thomas L. Good, one of the pioneers in research on teacher expectations and their effects on students. His look back on over 50 years of research radiates a love for the profession—and frustration that many of those insights have barely made it into (international) education policy. And believe me, that makes it both thought-provoking and a little confronting.

Good takes us back to 1968, a year marked by social unrest and civil rights protests in the United States. At that time, many people believed that schools and teachers had little influence on student achievement. Against this background, Rosenthal and Jacobson published their now-famous Pygmalion in the Classroom. In that study, they argued that when teachers believed certain students would “bloom,” those students actually performed better. At first glance, this sounded like magic. In reality, it was not. Soon after publication, critics challenged the study, and to this day, many people still cite it without having read it carefully. Nevertheless, it sparked a lasting idea: expectations matter.

In response to this debate, Good decided to look more closely. Instead of relying on vague labels like “this student will blossom,” he focused on what happens in real classrooms. More specifically, he asked how teachers behave toward students they see as high or low achievers. What he found was concrete. When teachers view students as strong, they ask them more questions, offer more chances to respond, and give more positive feedback. By contrast, when teachers see students as weak, interaction often shrinks to silence or criticism. Importantly, this pattern does not stay confined to one classroom. Rather, it varies widely between classrooms. In fact, some teachers consistently offer more opportunities to all students. So far, researchers have not fully explored these differences.

What makes the study especially strong is its honesty about what we know and what we do not. On the one hand, some teachers do treat students unequally. On the other hand, this does not mean teachers alone create the gap between high and low achievers. At the same time, students respond, resist, and shape the interaction. As a result, expectations do not flow in one direction. Instead, they emerge through ongoing action and reaction. Throughout the article, Good returns to this idea that teachers and students co-regulate what happens in the classroom.

Equally striking is Good’s tone. Rather than preaching, he remains critical but careful. He acknowledges that expectations and teacher effectiveness matter, while also warning against the naïve belief that teachers alone can close achievement gaps. After all, social inequality does not begin in the classroom. However, classroom practices can amplify it or soften its effects.

Unfortunately, what happened next tells a familiar story. Despite decades of careful research, policymakers often ignore these insights. Worse still, in the United States, they sometimes misuse the findings to evaluate teachers through questionable testing tools. Yet, the real lesson points elsewhere. If anything, teachers need time, space, and support to examine their own expectations. That means dialogue, reflection, and collaboration, not checklists.

In the end, Good closes with a simple and generous plea. He calls on us to listen to teachers, work with them, not around them, and keep translating research into classroom practice. There are no magic recipes. What we do have are tools that teachers can actually use.

Abstract of the article:

This article reviews over 50 years of research on teacher expectations and teacher effectiveness. In addition to describing these research traditions and findings, I tie the research in these evolving fields to the societal issues in play when the research was conducted and connect historical and emerging work. I describe the enormous growth of knowledge in both fields and its potential for practice. Among many outcomes, these two research traditions yielded clear evidence that teachers impact student achievement. Despite the potential value of this research, it has largely been ignored by policy makers, and when used, has been misused. I contend that policy makers have focused on the weaknesses of normative teaching and have ignored teachers’ strengths and knowledge. Of course, aspects of normative teaching can be improved, as can teacher expectations and teacher effectiveness research. Current and continuing research has some capacity for addressing the opportunity and achievement gaps that separate more advantaged and marginalized students; however, teachers and schools alone cannot resolve these vast opportunity differences that are available to American students.